“The Troll Farmer” quotes from The Blacklist

I pine for the days when conquered generals had the sense and good taste to fall on their swords. Now they hold press conferences, negotiate advances for their memoirs while the rest of us clean up their messes.

[to Keen] You're in a storm, Lizzy. You need to find the peace below the winds.

The Troll Farmer uses social media to conduct highly coordinated disinformation campaigns on behalf of governments, lobbyists, corporations, crime syndicates, and on occasion, a humble fugitive. He's mastered the art of information warfare by creating events, virtual hoaxes designed to piggyback on real public anxiety. He activates hundreds of fake accounts to post thousands of tweets, creating the appearance of, say, a terrorist attack in Paris that served as cover for an art heist. He doctors screenshots from news outlets to report an ebola outbreak in Atlanta in order to drive up the stock of a drug company developing a cure. The Troll Farmer is much more than a rumor monger. The events he creates appear to be real and provoke a very real response. Smoke manufactured to draw the cameras away from the real fire.

Elizabeth Keen

When I was a little girl, I used to imagine that my mother was a prima ballerina who danced for kings and queens in London and Paris. And she only left me with Sam until she could come home again and sweep me away.